Dr. Jack Carlson is the creative director and founder of New York-based fashion label Rowing Blazers. He earned a Ph.D. from Oxford, and before starting the label represented the United States at three World Rowing Championships, winning bronze in 2015. His academic focus was on Roman and Chinese archaeology, and he worked as a field archaeologist in Italy before launching Rowing Blazers.
He is the author of the best-selling book Rowing Blazers, which gave the brand its name. Rowing Blazers is known for its jackets, rugby shirts, sweaters, and accessories – as well as its frequent collaborations with iconic brands and philanthropic organizations. Rowing Blazers is also known for its commitment to ethical sourcing, fair labor, and high quality, as well as its commitment to diversity and its subversive, inclusive take on the
classics.
What is Rowing Blazers all about?
Rowing Blazers is an American clothing brand with a cult following, we also call it a design lab for the classics, we’re passionate about authenticity, quality, and craftsmanship; and simultaneously to irreverence, inclusivity, sustainability, empowerment, and fun. There’s a sense of humor, often a hint of irony and subversiveness, to everything we do. Our sense of community, timeless aesthetic, dedication to historical research, and commitment to making pieces that will last a lifetime are also central to the brand.
We work with some of the best mills, factories and workshops on the planet, and we hold both ourselves and our partners to the highest standards. Almost all of our clothes and accessories are crafted in Europe and the U.S. by people who are skilled in traditional techniques and whose commitment to the planet, and to ethical, sustainable production matches our own. That’s one reason why we are entrusted to make blazers and other products for some of the world’s leading sporting organizations, including the U.S. national rowing and rugby teams. Rowing Blazers is also a community. We’re known for our collaborations with like-minded brands big and small; our diverse clientele, which include some of our own heroes from all walks of life; and our partnerships with artists, athletes, musicians, and iconic establishments.
Rowing Blazers also serves as a platform for other brands we like and whose values we share, with a particular emphasis on women- and BIPOC- founded brands. You can find some of these brands in our online shop alongside our own products. Rowing Blazers also frequently collaborates with causes and movements in which we believe, and we put our money where our mouth is when we speak out on issues and events that matter to us by donating to a wide range of charitable organizations, including our principal charitable partner, Row New York.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I took an unusual path into the fashion industry. Before starting Rowing Blazers, I was an athlete, a member of the U.S. national rowing team. I was training full time and working on developing the brand was my side project. Before that, I was a high school teacher; and before that, I was a graduate student in archaeology, working on a Ph.D., where my side project was writing a book about clothing. That book was called Rowing Blazers, and it formed the foundation for the brand. The book was supposed to be a niche thing, mostly for the rowing community. But it really resonated with what was going on in menswear and fashion, and it just kind of took off in this way I never expected. That was my introduction to the industry, and that
gave me the idea of starting the brand.
The idea behind Rowing Blazers has always been to do the classics, but in a much more thoughtful way than anyone else was doing: a real emphasis on authenticity, doing things the right way, traditional and ethical production. The other big pillar of the brand is irreverence. We are a bit more subversive, a bit more tongue-in-cheek than others. We draw a little bit from the world of streetwear: lots of collaborations, frequent product drops – these have always been an important part of the idea of what the brand is all about.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- Scrappiness. This was a skill I really learned from rowing. You can’t just have a bunch of great ideas. You have to be willing to roll up your sleeves everyday. You have to be able to figure out how to adapt to challenges you never could have imagined. Not on paper, but in real life.
- Commitment. What I mean by this is a commitment, almost a stubbornness, to your own values and to what you stand for. At Rowing Blazers, our values, and the strength of our commitment to our brand are some of our greatest assets.
- The ability to bring together a great team. Although I’m the founder of the brand, it’s the people with whom I work that really deserve the credit for making the brand so successful in such a short space of time. We have a brilliant, diverse team at Rowing Blazers.
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
The most important thing is staying true to our brand identity and to our values. The company is in a rapid-growth phase, so I think the key is not figuring out how to grow, but the key is figuring out how we stay really true to who we are as we grow. Our values are our guiding light: a dedication to the classics and to authenticity; a sense of irreverence and subversiveness; ethical production; putting people and the planet ahead of profits; giving back to the community.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
When the pandemic hit, it was very scary. We had no idea how it would impact our business, or for how long. We just knew, relatively quickly, that our Manhattan flagship store, together with our pop-up shops in Brooklyn and L.A., were going to have to close for extended periods. Our whole future was uncertain. We also didn’t know if people were going to continue shopping online, or how the pandemic would impact our e-commerce business. But it also provided a great opportunity for the entire company to come together. We took a number of steps with two goals in mind: to be able to take care of our team as well as we possibly could, and to ensure the company’s survival. Of course, the two goals go together. Among the steps we took, I’m proud to say that I took my salary to zero, and my co-founder took his to almost zero also. We were determined not to have to let any full-time employees go because of the pandemic.
Working remotely wasn’t always easy. We had a number of new employees who started right around the same time as the pandemic began, and they effectively had no time working in person and getting to know the rest of the team in real life or how we do things. There were other pandemic-related challenges too: it was very difficult to produce and receive new products. Of course, the pandemic put a lot of manufacturing onto an extended pause; and shipping was also a nightmare. Additionally, much of our inventory was stuck at the Brooklyn and Los Angeles pop-up venues, and we were unable to access it for extended periods. It was frustrating and scary at times, but it was inspiring to see how everyone pulled together. It required a lot of scrappiness, but the result was our best year yet.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
Coming out of the world of sports, I’m a natural competitor. But I actually think collaborating is more important than competition. One of our greatest strengths is our ability to collaborate with a wide variety of organizations, brands, and people. As I mentioned earlier, Rowing Blazers carries other brands as well as its own products, with an emphasis on women- and BIPOC-founded brands. We also create collaborative collections with other apparel brands – big brands like FILA and J. Crew and smaller brands like Noah and Tracksmith. We collaborate with, rather than compete, with these brands.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
- Not expecting the unexpected. When I was starting out, I had no idea how many times a month, week, day I could be blindsided. When it comes to making clothing, buying fabrics, working with factories, warehouses, shipping companies, and so on, there is just so much that can go wrong that you can never imagine. All of that multiplies when you have a physical store, as the team grows, when people from all over the world are visiting your website.
- You can’t make everyone happy. No matter what you do, and no matter how good your intentions are, there will always be people who don’t like what you’re doing. You don’t need to spend a lot of energy trying to make those people happy.
- Not having enough balance in my life. It’s important to unplug; to take the night off; to have real weekends; to work out. I’ve learned a lot and have much better balance now.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
I think the most successful form of marketing for us is word-of-mouth and other forms of organic marketing. Anyone can buy an ad, but it means so much more when you see someone with good taste wearing the brand or when a friend tells you about it. We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of high-profile celebrity clientele wearing Rowing Blazers, almost always totally organically. People can tell when someone is wearing a brand just because they like it, not because they’re paid to wear it.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I’d use it for travel, dinners, coffee, drinks… and what I mean by that is this: I’d use it to connect with people. The right people. People who can help. Who know the things that I don’t. Who I admire and respect. That’s essentially what I did at the beginning of this journey, and that’s how I met my business partner, David. I came to New York, and I had a list of people to meet. People from the apparel industry. I spent five days bouncing around the city like a pinball, meeting lots of people who were far smarter and far more experienced in the world of fashion and apparel than I was. David was the very last person I met before leaving New York, and we just really hit it off. He’s a veteran of the industry, and without David, I don’t think the brand ever would have gotten off the ground.
What is your favorite quote?
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam: “I shall either find a way, or make one.”
This quote is often erroneously attributed to Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who led an army, complete with elephant cavalry, from Africa through Spain, over the Alps, and into Roman Italy.
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
My advice is to surround yourself with great people, and with diverse people. One of Rowing Blazers’ greatest strengths is our team – and the diversity of that team. We have so many different voices represented when we meet and discuss new projects – in terms of gender, age, race, identity, background – and I think that’s a big part of what has made us so successful.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Readers can get in touch with me through my website. I always love hearing from people!
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